#Review - Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent #YALit #Dystopian

Series: Brave New Girl # 1
Format: Hardcover, 272 pages
Release Date: May 9, 2017
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian

In a world where everyone is the same, one girl is the unthinkable: unique. A high-stakes fast-paced series launch from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Vincent.

Dahlia 16 sees her face in every crowd. She’s nothing special—just one of five thousand girls created from a single genome to work for the greater good of the city.

Meeting Trigger 17 changes everything. He thinks she’s interesting. Beautiful. Unique. Which means he must be flawed. When Dahlia can’t stop thinking about him she realizes she’s flawed, too.

But what if Trigger is right? What if Dahlia is different? But if she’s flawed, then so are all her identicals. And any genome found to be flawed will be destroyed, ONE BY ONE BY ONE…

"We have brown hair. Brown eyes. Fair skin. We are healthy and strong and smart. But only one of us has ever had a secret."

Brave New Girl is the first installment in Rachel Vincent's Brave New Girl sci-fi young adult duology featuring Dahlia 16 as the main protagonist. In the City of Lakeview, Dahlia 16 sees her face in every crowd. The only way to differentiate one from the other is the name on the uniforms and bar codes on their wrists. Dahlia is nothing special; just one of five thousand girls created from a single genome to work for the greater good of the city. Her job is to grow veggies and she's really good at it. So good that her plants seem to do a whole lot better than anyone else's. 

Meeting Trigger 17 changes everything. He thinks she’s interesting. Beautiful. Unique. Which means he must be flawed. When Dahlia can’t stop thinking about him; when she can't resist looking for him, even though that means breaking the rules; she realizes she’s flawed, too. But if she’s flawed, then so are all her identicals. And any genome found to be flawed will be recalled. Destroyed. Getting caught with Trigger would seal not only Dahlia’s fate, but that of all five thousand girls who share her face. 

But what if Trigger is right? What if Dahlia is different? Suddenly the girl who always follows the rules is breaking them, one by one by one until she discovers a secret so shocking that I am not going to spoil it for you. I actually went into this book with a whole lot of pensiveness. I like this author, a lot, but I've had some issues with some of her past stories. I've heard from other reviewers how they love the world, and the enormous twist at the ending. 

But, you know what? The ending was pretty much self evident if you follow the crumbs the author leaves along the way. In fact, she pretty much hands you the answer on a silver platter if you pay attention to Dahlia's quirks and those she meets along the way. In this world, Geneticists have created clones in a lab and there were thousands of Dahlia's model created. They all have names corresponding to their future career (Dahlia = flower = gardening/growing produce) and the number signifies their age.

In this world, if you are different, there are consequences. Clones aren't supposed to have feelings or ideas of their own. They are supposed to say thank you for your service to anyone who is not within their group, and move on. Dahlia and Trigger make for an interesting pairing. She's a botanist, he's a soldier who has had special forces training. He's seen things that Dahlia would never have seen had she not met him and had her entire living twisted in a matter of moments.

This is actually a tale of two stories: the set up to the characters, and the one where all he action, suspense, and secrets are revealed in all their glory. It's pretty interesting being inside Dahlia's head as her world suddenly grows by leaps and bounds and everything she's been told, is now up for debate, if not totally wrong. I'll leave it there since the ending is a breath taking cliffhanger and I do plan on finishing this series once my library has purchased the sequel.

 

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